Tuesday, June 02, 2015

I've neglected crime fiction recently in favor of Indian history in the form of Ramachandra Guha, both his essays about important persons and themes in India's 20th-century history and his fat, highly readable volume India After Gandhi. (Is it enough for weighty volumes of history to be "fat" and "highly readable," or is it mandatory that they be called "magisterial"?) In any case, while I burrow deeper into Guha's highly readable majesty, here's an old post about a prolific Indian crime writer that includes some thoughts on his country's literary classics.

"Some people don't think crime novels count as literature. My answer to them is that the first crime novel in this world is theMahabharatham— which has every imaginable sort of intrigue — and the next is theRamayanam. The great epics themselves depend on rape, molestation, abduction and murder for their plots. It makes me laugh when I am accused of spoiling society with my crime novels."

It is nice to see that an Indian crime writer faces the same moralistic scorn that some of his Western counterparts do. It's nice, too, to see two Hindu epics in the ranks of the world's great proto-crime stories (click link, then scroll down).

Kumar also laments India's poor performance in the country's favorite sport ("Our cricket team is too busy advertising soft drinks, having affairs with film actresses and abandoning their families. Where is the time for practice?") and offers a disarming answer to questioner who asks: "I am suffering from hair loss due to stress. Do you worry about such things?"

Some people don't think crime novels count as literature. My answer to them is that the first crime novel in this world is the Mahabharatham — which has every imaginable sort of intrigue After finally reading 'The Brothers Karamazov' last Summer the way it should be read, -fast, and over a relatively short period of time, - I got to thinking that so many of the great crime writers of the 20th Century must have been influenced by Dostoevsky, more than any other 'classics' writer

I read "The Brothers Karamzov" years ago, I think in the manner you suggested -- over a relatively short period of time. I'd wager that Dostoevsky is the author most often cited as a precursor to or influence on crime novels. But the discussions usually cite "Crime and Punishment." R.N. Morris writes historical crime novels featuring "Crime and Punishment"'s Porphyry Petrovich as protagonist. ( He has written on "My Debt to Dostoevsky" here and here.) Stuart Kaminsky also borrowed the name for his own series set in Russia.

Disgracefully off-topic, Peter, I confess but I'm in a state of pleasurably high dudgeon after reading a review of the 40th anniversary edition of The Friends of Eddie Coyle in the Boston Globe by Hallie Ephron. Ms. Ephron has written a number of mysteries and is related to various screenwriting Ephrons.

She says:

In his essay “The Simple Art of Murder,’’ Raymond Chandler credited Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,’’ the other game-changing crime novel of the 20th century, with taking “murder out of the Venetian vase’’ and dropping it “in the alley.’’ But “Falcon” is about a man’s devotion to a friend. Coyle has no friends. And Higgins did just what Chandler says of Hammett, he “wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.’’

Higgins bristled when H.R.F. Keating, The Times of London crime-fiction critic, called him a crime writer. “I’m a novelist,’’ was the rebuff. He was influenced, he said, by the writings of O’Hara and Hemingway, not Chandler and Hammett. Regardless, “Friends” profoundly affected the genre. His legacy: the dialogue-driven novel

I'm not a great fan of Higgins writng, his literary snobbery is risible, and he neither invented or popularized the dialogue driven novel but how on earth could Ephron describe 'The Maltese Falcon' as being about a man's devotion to a friend? Presumably, the friend is Spade's partner Archer. But Spade is screwing Archer's wife and has Archer's name taken off the office door before Archer's body has even got cold.

Clearly, she has neither read the novel or even seen the movie, or else was ingesting some hallucinatory substance at the time. Somebody needs to hit her over the head with a blunt object, preferably a black bird.

Peter, I'm an easy-going fellow at the best of times but after reading that Ephron piece I find that my hackles are being sorely tested once again. Maybe it's the weather. It's almost unseasonably hot here in Dublin. Maybe it's the drink. I'm not sure, but I've just being checking out Declan Burke's blog. And getting very irritated.

Declan qoutes a (Colin) Bateman article in The Guardian where Bateman says:

British authors like Robert Lewis, Charlie Williams, Malcolm Pryce, Chris Ewan, Declan Burke and Len Tyler are at the vanguard of a new wave of young writers kicking against the clichés and producing ambitious, challenging, genre-bending works

Declan's response to this description of his nationality is very restrained. He says:

Now, yours truly is a native-born and horny-handed son of the soil of Eireann, as some of you know and some of you even care. But I’m more than willing to overlook the fact that I’m now - according to Bateman, at least - a subject of Queen Elizabeth II, bless her cotton socks, on the basis that he reckons I’m (a) comic, (b) challenging, (c) loved and (d) young. Said last - young! - being by far the most important attribute, obviously

Perhaps, I'm just in a bad mood, perhaps I'm just cranky but what the f*ck does Bateman, a fellow who comes from a place where nationalist differences can lead to murder, mean by describing Declan Burke as British? Not to recognize a person's nationality is an insult to that person. Was Colin intending to insult Declan or was he just being thick?

As usual, interesting & educational stuff. Quick question, I know you have posted about and liked some Icelandic Crime writers. How about Swedish writer Steig Larsson? Read his name mentioned a few times lately. Have you read any of his novels,and do you recommend?

Re: Stephen King & baseball. At the end of "Nightmares & Dreamscapes, there is a true story of his son's Little League team & their journey through the playoffs. It is very good. He was already famous, but was just a Dad with a kid on the team.

Solo, I must have a high disgrace threshold; that's a most interesting comment. I haven't read the review in question, but it certainly does appear that Halle Ephron is striving mightily so say something new about an old classic to which she should really content herself with paying homage, as well as striving even more mightily to please a hometown crowd in Boston. Devotion to a friend? Devotion to doing one's job, maybe.

What defenders of "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" may forget is that it was an early novel by a young writer, and thus prone to rough edges.

Solo, Bateman also wrote that "this year’s Crime Writers’ Association Dagger awards shortlist, which is not noticeably troubled by anything likely to put a smile on your face," according to the excerpt Declan quotes. That seems an odd assertion in a year when the International Dagger shortlist includes novels by Andrea Camilleri and Tonino Benacquista.

My Irish eyes are burning at Bateman's error in not recognizing Declan Burke's nationality. It seems to me a bit of English snobbery about Ireland.

And agree that there is no way that Halle Ephron read "The Maltese Falcon" to have made it a story about friendship. In fact, it's rather a story about betrayals of friendships and relationships.

The Stieg Larsson phenomenon; that might be a good blog topic.Everyone I know likes the books. My first impression is that they are extremely well-plotted, the characters are interesting, many conspiracies are exposed, as is Sweden as a peaceful country, there are social issues, action and more.

I was reading the books at the same time that I was reading Arnaldur Indridason, whom I think is a better writer in some ways, while Larsson's books are exciting and real page-turners, with deeper and deeper motives and conspiracies revealed with each page.

Many a friend has stayed up until the wee hours reading Larsson's books.

Peter, there's an old joke in one of Jim Thompson's books (Pop 1280, I think) where a characer says 'You should kick him in the balls' and the other character asks 'Won't that hurt?' and the first character says 'No, not if you wear a good pair of boots.' I think the next time Declan and Colin meet Declan should be wearing a good pair of boots.

I'd wager that Dostoevsky is the author most often cited as a precursor to or influence on crime novels. But the discussions usually cite "Crime and Punishment."

I would certainly agree that C&P's plot and theme would be the single Dostoyevsky work that would most likely be the greatest influence on crime writers, but the breadth and complexity of 'Karamazov' would I believe be a richer source to mine.

And I'm not just talking specifically about the murder investigation and subsequent trial

Kathy, I'll defend Colin Bateman to the point of accusing him of sloppiness rather than ignorance. I think he and Declan Burke know one another, and Declan has certainly written about Bateman's book's enough. Bateman probably wanted a short form for "writers from the British Isles and Ireland." There's a Welsh writer on his list, for example, so he had reason to scramble for a term to cover everyone. He just came up with the wrong term. And to keep matters straight about nationality, he's from Northern Ireland, not England.

Many people have stayed up late reading Larsson. When I say "I don't get it," I simply mean that I don't quite understand why these books are the ones that even non-crime-fiction readers read, why he is the writer whose death has spawned conspiracy theories and so on.

Solo, see my reply to Kathy. I would bet that Bateman knows Declan is Irish and just had a momentary slip. The ones who should be covering their privates when they see Declan coming are Guardian editors, for putting the piece in the hands of editors who obviously knew nothing about their subject.

Thanks, Tales. That link took me eventually to a massive directory of Indian writers that did not, as far as I could tell, include Rajesh Kumar. Perhaps crime writers don't get much respect. And now to search for Pondicherry thrillers ...

To each his or her own about defining their nationality and whether or not they want to bring it up.

I know Welsh and Irish people who'd flip on this blunder.

It seems to me that many lives were lost over the self-defining and independence of Ireland, but, hey, that's just me.

Larsson--I can see why he's popular. His books are riveting page-turners, with social commentary, interesting characters, especially Lizbeth Salander, layers of conspiracies continually being uncovered (page after page), and that indescribable can't-put-it-downism.

I guess perhaps it's a cross between Sjowall/Wahloo and Harlan Coben. What do others think?

Oh, it's a blunder on Bateman's part, all right, but a blunder of carelessness rather than ignorance. It's the Guardian's editors who have committed the worse sin -- that of entrusting material published under the newspaper's name to the care of an editor ignorant of the subject, if the piece was edited at all.

I haven't read Harlan Coben, but I like your description. It makes Larsson's books sounds like socially concerned thrillers.

I recently read the Epic of Gilgamesh, which surely qualifies as Ur-Noir. Enemies who become friends, the wrath of a woman scorned, the death of a good friend, and a search for the secret to life only to learn "Life, which you look for, you will never find."

Jim: Gilgamesh is a terrific choice whose proto-noir aspects I've written about before: http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/2008/07/noir-story-set-in-iraq.html I may have called Ishtar the world's first femme fatale.

And nice wordplay: Ur-noir. Of course, I titled one of my posts "Sumer time, and the living is easy," so I appreciate such things.

Nice post, Peter. I'm not familiar with many writers in the regional languages of India including Tamil, the official language of the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Hence, writer Rajesh Kumar is new to me. There is some good crime fiction in these regional languages though I can't say how much has been translated.

Thanks, Prashant. Blaft Publications, which published the work discussed here, has also issued English translations of crime and other pulp writing from Hindi and Urdu, so I think the company made an effort to offer a taste of linguistic and regional diversity in Indian pulp fiction. Hee is the Blaft Web site. It appears that Blaft publishes fiction from Pakistan and Nigeria as well. Here are some more posts I have put up about Blaft's books.

Some of these authors are apparently phenomenally popular in India, having written hundreds of novels. The distribution, production and reading of pulp fiction in India seems similar to the pulp scene in the U.S. in the middle of the last century: Fast, exciting reading, published frequently and available at affordable prices. That is all to the good.

The similarities I had in mind has more to do with the mot hod of distribution than the form of the stories. From what I understand, many of the authors were prolific, as were American pulp and paperback authors from, say, the 1930s until the 1960s, that many of the novels were short, and that many were available in cheap editions at places where people could find them easily. That would be another parallel with the easy availability of American paperback original novels ar drugstores and other places where a wide public could find them easily.

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About Me

This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly.
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